


Space Cabbie's Universe Spanning Protection Service (Cost: 50,000 Credits)

by BookofOdym



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Green Lantern - All Media Types, Green Lantern: The Animated Series
Genre: M/M, Misunderstandings, Self-Indulgent, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 16:16:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15755307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookofOdym/pseuds/BookofOdym
Summary: Following the plan for GLTAS Season 2: John is assigned to chase down Honor Lantern Jordan who has unexpectedly (totally expectedly) gone rogue. Honor Lantern Jordan is much more interested in flirting than actually saving his own ass from the man pursuing him.





	Space Cabbie's Universe Spanning Protection Service (Cost: 50,000 Credits)

**Author's Note:**

> I am unfathomably terrified of every single one of you.  
> I have no idea how popular this story could get but when you end up with a story with tons of chapters there's the very real threat that it will eventually bring in more people than you can handle.  
> For various reasons this fic has a chance of needing to be deleted and reposted, but there's also a chance that this will never happen.  
> I guess luckily this ship is unpopular so I'll probably worry for nothing.
> 
> Here is the multi-chapter stewartjordan brick I've been working on.

Khundia.

It was a rough, craggy planet which was kept in a perpetual eclipse by its own moon. Volcanic activity affected the climate to an extreme extent, at every part of the year it swung wildly between temperatures hotter than even the hottest countries on Earth, and colder than those of Earths poles. Any temperature in between the two extremes came with an inescapable deluge of hail. Despite this, or maybe because of it causing a planet-wide need to relieve tension, Khundia ended up suffering from crippling over-population, even though they had now achieved space flight and had colonized much of their solar system.

It was really no wonder that over the millennia the people living on the planet had become harsh to survive, in fact, it was almost a necessity.

What was a wonder though was that the civilization had managed to achieve space flight several centuries before Earth had and had long since become a major political and military power within their sector.

All around where the newcomer had landed there were children being trained in the art of wrestling, the use of swords and spears as well as where they should hit their enemy to cause them the most amount of damage. The society was very reminiscent of ancient Sparta, or the Vikings, or at least it would be if every person there wasn’t also holding the energy rifles of 3000 years further in the future. Everyone from the toddlers to the very few (most likely the aging population got killed in wars) elderly.

Nearby, two Khundian males, both of whom towered over seven feet, broke out into a brawl over a game consisting of several bone pieces laid out on a board, within two seconds, weapons had been drawn. They circled each other, one holding a sword, the other an axe. The fight wasn’t why John was on this planet though.

He was tracking fugitives.

For John’s first mission as a member of the honor guard, he had been sent to track down two rogue Lanterns. This was not the first time that these two, in particular, had gone rogue, in fact, they seemed to be causing some kind of trouble every few months. They’d managed to avoid consequences during every escapade up until now, which made it even more important to catch them.

Intel provided by a group who were frankly a little too close to being Black Ops Lanterns for anybody’s comfort put the two runaways squarely in this sector, and John was as certain of the fact that they were on this planet as he was that two-year-olds should not be allowed to handle high powered laser weapons.

A blast hit the sign above John’s head and his eyes were instinctually drawn left, looking past where the toddler holding the smoking gun was being chided by his mother, where they landed on a shorter figure. Slim. The same size and stature as a human. The figure brushed his grey cloak away from his waist so that he could pull out a pouch filled with the currency of this planet, revealing a green power battery strapped to his waist for only a moment. It was a stupid error for a whole host of different reasons.

John moved slowly, pushing past where the two fighting men were already drawing blood, he would stop them, but he was certain that the man he would pursuing would notice the chaos that would produce. He pulled the gray cloak that he had procured further around himself, it was important to cover his own corps symbol, aside from not wanting to be noticed by the fugitive he was certain that his uniform would not be welcomed on Khundia in the current political climate. The Khundish people had taken an incident where the Green Lantern in charge of their sector had removed a certain man wanted in several galaxies for various murders, he had been a well respected general and next in line to take over as leader of the people. John shuddered thinking of the carnage that the man could have caused in a position of power. Khundia did not see it the same way, they had almost declared war on the spot.

The shorter of the two figures was standing close to a Space Cabbie pick up point, which meant John would only have moments to catch him if the fugitive ended up spotting him. He would never have expected a company to run a space cab service all around the universe, and if he lost them it would be difficult to ever find them again. Luckily, the man he was pursuing seemed to be keeping busy chatting up the nearest Khundish warrior.

John couldn’t help a snort at that, he had been told not to underestimate his predecessor, but the other Earthman wasn’t exactly hard to find. Or hard to sneak up on.

Unfortunately, his moment of mirth caught someone’s attention and a taller figure gripped his quarry’s arm and pulled him towards a waiting cab.

John’s eyes met the other Earth Man’s for the first time and he was startled by how warm they were. A deep brown surrounded by a spattering of freckles. John would have said he was Spanish or Italian on one side or the other, it was actually both, it would be foolish to track the man without reading the file the Justice League kept on him (Batman had left dozens of notes on the man’s supposed idiocy). The eyes wrinkled slightly at the corners as Jordan sent a grin his way, one of his canines was longer than the other, John looked away uncomfortably, he had been staring.

“Well, guess I’m your man.”

John’s eyes widened at that, Jordan just had to be as hard to deal with as everyone said. He wondered if it was an attempt to distract him or if it was just because the man missed sleeping with humans. “Are you physically capable of talking to someone without flirting with them?”

The grin grew, and he knew instantly that he was being messed with. “For you, anything.”

John didn’t even bother to dignify him with any further response, he just lifted his arm, ring already glowing so that he could form handcuff constructs around the criminal’s wrists.

“Oh wow, kinky,” Jordan continued prattling on to himself, he was the kind of guy that didn’t have an off switch for his mouth, John prepared himself for jokes about ‘punishment’ the entire way back to Oa, Gardner had been just as bad. The taller companion used the awkward moment of silence as an excuse to shove Jordan into a newly arrived space cab. The surprise broke John’s concentration for only a second, but already the handcuffs were dissolving into nothingness.

Cursing himself for getting tricked by a fake flirty idiot act, John pursued in a surge of green light, but the cab engaged its warp drive before it had even left the atmosphere of the planet, which incidentally broke at least six different traffic laws, both Khundish and Galactic.

John took off towards the left, flying right out of the solar system, if he was right he knew exactly where they would be headed.

* * *

 

It had all been a giant misunderstanding.

Hal had arrived on Korugar at the behest of his mentor. He had trusted Sinestro. He remembered the death of Neuroxis, sure, but he believed the other man when he said that it had been an accident, that he had merely been too late to save the criminal.

It had been meant to be a visit to a friend and mentor’s home planet. Hal had been close to a lot of his previous mentors, the men that he had met in the Air Force, he saw no reason to believe that this would be any different to a visit to Rich or Pappy’s place.

Maybe someone who was a better judge of character would have seen it coming.

The entire visit had gone to shit: The bomb. Arin Sur dying. Sinestro’s extreme response that had resulted in at least ten Korugarian deaths.

Maybe Hal should have expected something like this to happen based on the cold glance that Sinestro had sent him before flying off towards Oa.

Hal had thought that he was going to confess, to turn himself in.

He was probably an idiot to have thought that.

By the time he’d gotten back to Oa himself the Guardians had hundreds of rings pointed in his direction. It had only been through a plan put together by Guy, Kilowog, and the squirrel that he’d managed to escape.

Hal looked out the window of the cab (and he had tons of questions about that: who made spaceships in the shape of yellow taxi cabs? Who had decided to make a space taxi cab service in the first place? Not that it was a stupid idea, but it was hardly what you thought of when you imagined exploring space) and watched as stars, planets, supernovas and dust clusters passed by his window.

So, they’d sent another human after him them. Hal wondered vaguely if Guy was okay, they may not have even figured out that he was involved in the breakout.

But they’d sent the new guy, which raised more questions of a different sort: How had Stewart managed to land himself in the Honor Guard so quickly? He was probably good enough to track them wherever they went. Maybe the only way out of this would be to talk.

“…Can’t believe that you just went ahead and flirted with him. Had to pull you away before Ke’Haan killed you in training and have you learned anything…?”

Okay, so Kilowog was mad at him too. Great.

“Thought that maybe I could slow him down long enough for us to talk.”

Kilowog snorted, the huge gust caused by the action pushed their driver’s cap right off of his head. Space Cabbie swore in an alien language under his breath, forgetting that the men in his car had universal translators on their fingers. “Tell ya, I don’t trust Sinestro, but the guy knows how to worm his way into everyone’s good books, to manipulate them into thinking the best of him and the worst of whoever he’s talking about, even though he’s the slimiest poozer alive. You’ll never get anyone to listen to your word over his.”

That was true: Sinestro was a decorated Lantern with over a decade of experience, and he was recognized as the greatest Green Lantern of all time. By contrast, Hal had, in his three years on the job: caused sixteen diplomatic incidents, just barely stopped two of them spiraling into all-out wars and almost caused the destruction of the entire universe. Everyone was practically counting the days before he snapped and killed the Guardians.

“He is pretty hot though, this Stewart,” Hal crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back on them, apparently deep in thought. “You think he’d raw me if we met under different circumstances?”

* * *

 

John came out of transluminal space at the edge of his home solar system, hopefully before the arrival of his two fugitives.

Transluminal space was a much faster method of travel than normal warp speed, Lanterns needed to be able to travel around the universe in seconds, no craft would be able to withstand those kinds of speeds, the only people who could did so under their own power.

Call it a hunch, but some part of John felt that Hal would come back to Earth before too long, one of the first things that he had done in this investigation had been to look up his fugitive in Coast City.

Jordan might have been on the verge of losing his apartment, but he had two brothers on Earth, he was sure to return for them. It made John think of his own brother, they were estranged and had been for years but maybe someday he could track Damon down and they would be able to rebuild their relationship.

It had been easy to convince the two Jordan brothers that he was an old friend of Hal’s who urgently needed to speak to him and he was sure to receive a call if the rogue Lantern ever went home.

It was around when he reached Jupiter that he stopped, the cab should have arrived by now.

“Honor Lantern Stewart.” A voice came from behind him and wasn’t that the strangest little perk of being a Lantern, being able to hear sound while in a vacuum.

“Hm?” John said, watching the storms of Jupiter rage beneath him, sometimes he got an urge to take a dip into the clouds, see what it was like. The ring would protect him, he just never had the time. He knew who was addressing him and only turned to look at him when no answer was forthcoming.

The alien floating beside him looked like a mixture of a bird, a fish, and a man. A Xudarian, not an alien from this sector, rather one from Sector 2813, where Krypton had been located before its destruction.

John knew this particular Xudarian, every Lantern did, he was a friendly scientist who took interest in the ever-growing number of Lanterns from Sector 2814, as a form of respect for his deceased teacher. It was the same reason that Sinestro had taken on Jordan as a protégé.

“I wished to talk to you about Hal.” The Xudarian commented as if it was accepted for Lanterns to barge into other people’s cases. It might have been common, an issue caused largely by Jordan, but that didn’t mean that John was okay with someone just coming in and taking over.

John narrowed his eyes, Tomar and Jordan had often worked together, which might have given him intel on where Jordan was likely to go in a crisis.

“You know where he is?”

Tomar Re shook his head. “It is not about that.”

John sighed, his life could never be that easy. “What is it about then?”

“I do not believe that Lantern Jordan could ever kill anyone. He is a good man.”

That was just… great. So Tomar was going to meddle in his investigation.


End file.
